


The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

by melremade



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Marie Kondo Induced Cleaning Sprees, Reader-Insert, SO MUCH FLUFF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 09:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18091736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melremade/pseuds/melremade
Summary: Akaashi was minimalism and organization personified. You had trouble getting rid of things. Your different mindsets when it came to clutter had never caused much tension in your relationship.Then Netflix decided to give Marie Kondo her own show.





	The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! I'm not dead. Life has just been crazy. But Marie Kondo has inspired me to do more than just declutter and it's your gain.

As you watched Akaashi carry yet another armful of clothes from your shared closet out of the bedroom and down the hall to drop them on top of what by now was surely a small mountain of shirts and sweaters on the living room couch, only one question echoed in your mind: _‘Is this my fault?’_

For his birthday last year, you had given him a copy of Marie Kondo’s _The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up_. At the time, you had thought it was merely a best-selling book about how to better organize your things. Despite its title, you hadn’t realized it was supposed to cause a lifestyle change. 

He had practically devoured the book, finishing it in record time. His eyes had then turned to your apartment, from the closet filled with boxes to the overstuffed bookshelf to the kitchen drawer of miscellaneous cooking utensils that were organized with no rhyme or reason. But before he could get his hands the stack of magazines you were slowly working your way through, you had put a stop to Akaashi’s organizational fervor by insisting that you wanted to read the book first so that you could appreciate the KonMari Method as it was intended. 

And then you just...didn’t. 

Akaashi became busy with work and all plans to declutter your lives were put on the back burner. Until one day, when the two of you were enjoying a Sunday morning reading in bed, he paused mid-scroll on his tablet with a soft but sharp inhale of breath. 

“Keiji?” you had asked, confused by his reaction. He had turned to look at you with a soft smile that reached his eyes and was usually only reserved for you. 

“Marie Kondo is getting her own Netflix show.”

And so you had binge-watched all eight episodes together, enjoying it for different reasons. While you were interested in the teary-eyed moments of couples readying themselves for a new lifestyle and the before-and-after reveals of their homes, Akaashi had watched every recommendation and tip with rapt attention. He had been so engrossed that you were honestly surprised that he hadn’t been taking physical notes. 

When the last episode had finished, Akaashi had turned off the TV and declared that you two would be decluttering your home. Which was how you had ended up here, standing in front of your closet, staring helplessly at the clothes hanging in it. Akaashi’s half of the closet was now completely empty and you frowned at just how wrong it looked. If he ever moved out, this is what it would look like. 

You quickly shook your head, ridding yourself of the morbid thought and turned away from the closet. When you caught sight of the nightstand on Akaashi’s side of the bed, your sudden and unexpected spike of anxiety quickly faded away. 

His nightstand was a far cry from yours—where your empty coffee mug from that morning was perched on top of a small stack of books, a discarded pair of earrings had been lying there for weeks, and bobby pins and hair ties were strewn across the wooden surface. But you found its sparse minimalism comforting because it was so characteristically Akaashi. The only items on his nightstand beside a lamp matching yours were the book he was currently in the middle of reading and a framed picture of the two of you.

Glancing over your shoulder back at the closet, you frowned again only this time it was because you knew that you were expected to pile all of your own clothes onto the bed and begin to sort through what you were going to keep and what was going to be donated. You found yourself wilting at the seemingly herculean task. 

Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe there was still a chance that you could put a stop to this. 

Abandoning the first step of the KonMari Method completely, you left the bedroom and followed after Akaashi. You paused in the doorway to the living room as you saw him standing in front of the couch and surveying the stack of clothing. He picked up a t-shirt, looked at it for a long moment before murmuring a thank you to it and placing it on another pile of folded clothes. Next, he picked up a button-up and looked it over before placing it in a separate pile of clothes he must have been intending to keep. 

When you saw the expression on his face, you pouted childishly. Although his smile was mild, you knew him well enough that you could practically feel the excitement radiating off of him. Sometimes—although to give him credit, it wasn’t very often—he wasn’t even this visibly enthusiastic about sex. 

Suddenly, it was like a light bulb went off in your head. You bit back your grin, not wanting to give yourself away too soon. Sidling up behind him, you wrapped your arms around his middle and leaned up to press your lips to the nape of his neck. He dropped a hand to rest it on top of one of the arms around him and squeezed it affectionately. 

“How do I have so much blue?” he asked and you peeked around him to look down at the pile of clothes he still had to sort through. You smiled at the question, knowing that you were partially responsible for the disproportionate amount of blue in his wardrobe. 

“It brings out your eyes,” you told him and when you looked back up at him, you saw that his cheeks had turned the faintest shade of pink at the compliment. 

_Perfect_. You had him right where you wanted him. Leaning back up again, you gave the back of his neck another kiss, only this time you let your lips linger before pulling away. You then lightly trailed your nails from his waist to the hem of his shirt before slipping just underneath the fabric so that you could trace patterns on the skin just above the waist of his jeans. 

“Keiji, let’s take a break.” You punctuated your words with a nip of your teeth to his neck.

“A break? We just started,” he pointed out, oblivious to the suggestive nature of your words. 

“Just for a little bit,” you argued, your tone playful and this time, you dropped your fingers down to the button of his jeans. But before you could make any progress in undoing them, he was turning around in your arms to face you. 

“I think this is going to be good for us. We need to let go of a lot of things. This is going to be the start of a whole new chapter in our lives.” 

What were you supposed to say to that? You wanted to slap him for saying something so sweet when you were trying to distract him from the task at hand. How were you not supposed to melt when he looked at you with his eyes shining so brightly? With a defeated sigh, you ran a hand through his hair affectionately.

Seeming to sense that something was off, he gave you a questioning look but you simply shook it off with a reassuring smile and a quick kiss. 

“I’ll leave you to it then,” you said before making your way back towards the bedroom, resigned to spending the rest of your weekend using the KonMari Method to declutter the apartment. 

Sighing heavily, you began to empty out your clothes from the closet in one big pile on the bed. But before you could get too far, you caught sight of the small stack of boxes on the floor that had been hidden by your longer dresses. Looking for a distraction, you knelt down and pulled the boxes out.

You eagerly lifted the lid off of the smallest box on top and smiled at its contents. Inside the small, plain box where all of the mementos and trinkets that you had kept since you and Akaashi had started dating. You sifted through the box before pulling out a stack of letters that were bound together with a rubber band.

You pulled off the rubber band and slowly flipped through the envelopes. Each one had your name and the address of the apartment you had stayed in during the year you had spent studying abroad in college written across the front in Akaashi’s perfect penmanship. 

The two of you hadn’t even been dating at that point. You had been paired together for an assignment the semester before you left and had hit it off, enjoying his intelligence and dry sense of humor. When you were set to leave, you had assumed you would keep in touch online and through texting but in a move that was so very Akaashi, he had suggested exchanging letters. 

Picking one at random, you slipped the letter out and unfolded it.

As you skimmed the first sheet of paper, you realized that this was one of the earlier ones that Akaashi had sent you. When you had started writing to each other, it had been a fun and novel way to simply check in and see what was going on with a friend. But somewhere over the course of those twelve months, those letters filled with superficial anecdotes and questions about the other’s studies turned into something more. The two of you spilled your fears and your insecurities, the overwhelming stress from your classes, your ambitions for the future—all of it onto paper.

You had fallen in love with Akaashi through his letters. 

“Sentimental items are step five.” 

You immediately froze at the sharp words. 

_Speak of the devil._

With a sheepish expression, you looked up to see Akaashi standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest as he gave you his most disapproving stare. Dread crept over you. That stare always meant trouble. 

“But Keiji, I found your letters.” You held them up for him to see and surprise lit up his features for the briefest moment before his expression hardened once more.

“We’re still on step one,” he reminded you, his tone firm and you visibly wilted at his stubbornness. He then glanced at the closet and saw that it was still half full. “You haven’t even started.”

“I mean, I started clearing out the closet so technically I started,” you argued, returning your attention to the letters in your hands and pulling out another. Your eyes quickly scanned it and you couldn’t help the dreamy expression that fell over your face. 

“Keiji, listen to how beautiful this is: ‘ _...I hope you don’t think of me as being too presumptuous, but the only thing I look forward to more than writing these letters is receiving one from you. To hear that we share so many of the same hopes and fears provides me with a comfort you can’t know. Or perhaps you can. Perhaps on the other side of the large ocean and the thousands of miles that separate us, you sit at your desk and read my letters just as I do yours and feel that same comfort..._ ’”

When you looked up from the letter to Akaashi, you saw that his face had turned bright red, clearly embarrassed to have his own words read back to him. The sight made you want to melt even more. For someone who was always so analytical and rarely outspoken about his emotions, these letters revealed a side of him that you didn’t get to see often enough. 

You folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope and began to look for another one, only for the entire stack to be plucked from your hands.

“Hey!” 

Your pout fell away when Akaashi sat down next to you on the floor and started sorting through the envelopes on his own. 

You saw that he was looking at the postmarks on the front of each one, clearly looking for one in particular. When he stopped at one, you glanced at the date it was postmarked and realized that this had to have been one of the last ones he had sent. He pulled out the letter and unfolded it. Scooting closer to him, you rested your chin on his shoulder so that you could follow along as he began to read aloud. 

“‘ _...You’ll be home soon and I’m counting down the days. I trust you know that I think of you often. I worry that once you’re back in Tokyo and we’re sharing the same campus, the same library, the same classes, you’ll be in my thoughts like you are now. What if I continue to miss you even as the distance between us shrinks? I worry because the thought isn’t as scary as it should be. Please forgive me for being too forward. I wish you the best of luck on your final exams although I know you won’t need it…_ ’”

Overcome with affection, you leaned forward and gave a sweet kiss to his cheek. You smiled against his skin when you felt him lean into the press of your lips. 

“These letters mean everything to me,” you sighed happily. “I thought you were so weird when you asked if you could write to me, but I think it might be the best idea you’ve ever had.” 

“There are nicer ways to say that,” he pointed out but he was unable to fully mask his amusement underneath his dry tone. 

“How many people get to have their love story written out for them on paper?” you asked as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders and hugged him tightly. 

“These letters spark joy for me,” he said and he sounded so decisive about how much the letters meant to him that it warmed your heart. 

“Aw, Keiji. That’s so—”

“But these letters shouldn’t be sitting in a box in our closet, hidden beneath your clothes,” he cut you off before you could begin to coo over how sweet he was being. “If we’re going to properly organize using the KonMari Method, we should put these somewhere where we’ll be reminded of them often.”

Your arms dropped from around his shoulders and you blinked owlishly at him as he lectured you, a favorite hobby of his. A small, affectionate smile appeared on your lips at how stubborn he could be. 

“This is also why sentimental items are supposed to be tidied last. By going through them too early in the process, you can get sidetracked like we’re doing now. Plus, our sense of what sparks joy needs to be properly honed before we get around to—”

“ _You_ spark joy for me,” you interrupted and Akaashi froze, surprised by the sudden sentiment. Your smile grew larger when you saw his cheeks turn slightly pink and you leaned in to give him one more kiss. 

You used his momentary surprise to your advantage and plucked the letter from his fingers to put it back in its envelope so that you could bundle the stack together once more with the rubber band. Putting the lid back on the box, you then slid the boxes back into the closet to be dealt with later and stood up.

You supposed that the least you could do for the man you loved so much would be to clear out the junk that you had no real need for. So, you reached back into your closet and went back to emptying out all of the clothes still hanging in it. But before you could dump the armful of dresses and shirts onto the bed, Akaashi took them from you.

“Here, I’ll empty the closet. Why don’t you start on what’s in the drawers?”

You nodded appreciatively and turned to the dresser along the wall. Opening the first drawer, you paused at the sight of your underwear and bras. Suddenly feeling very mischievous, you picked up the pale pink, lace thong sitting on top and turned around to face Akaashi.

“Hey, Keiji?” He looked up at you after dropping another armful onto the quickly growing mountain of clothes on the bed and his focus immediately went to the scrap of fabric in your hands. “These don’t really spark joy for me. What about you?”

His gaze flitted between you and the slip of lace, the corners of his lips turning down as his eyes narrowed. There was never any getting anything past Akaashi. He knew what you were doing and you could see that he was torn over whether or not to indulge your playfulness. Finally, after a long moment of silence, he made up his mind and walked towards you. 

He came to a stop in front of you, only a few centimeters between you. You instinctively took a step back to better look up at him, only to stop when you backed into the still-open drawer. He quickly closed the small gap of distance between you so that you were pressed against him. His expression remained carefully blank as he looked down at you and the tension was killing you as you waited to see what he would do. 

His attention then shifted to the open drawer as he began to sort through its contents until he found what he was looking for. You glanced over your shoulder to try and see what he was doing but you only managed to catch a glimpse of him tugging something out from your neatly folded stack of underwear. 

Your breath caught in surprise when he leaned in until your noses were almost touching. You were sure that your cheeks were turning pink as you tried to anticipate his next move. He slipped the pair of underwear he had pulled out into your free hand but before you could look down and see which pair had caught his eye, he brought his lips to your ear and from his soft chuckle, you knew that you had failed to suppress your shiver. 

“ _These_ spark something similar to joy for me,” he said before pulling back slightly to place a lingering kiss on the corner of your lips. You were tempted to turn your head and pull him into a proper kiss but he was already moving away and turning his attention back to the closet to resume emptying it of your remaining clothes. 

Still slightly dazed from having him so close only for him to leave you wanting more, you looked down at the underwear he had given you and were immediately snapped from your stupor as you saw the pair in your hand. You could feel your cheeks burning as you took in the piece of lingerie. 

It was a pair you only wore on special occasions or whenever you wanted to break Akaashi’s cool and collected demeanor. The sheer fabric meant nothing was hidden from view and they never failed to stir up something in him that always left you sore and aching for more.

But it was now you whose teasing facade was in shambles as you blushed furiously when images of the last time you had worn them flashed through your head. When you finally managed to gather your wits and look up, you audibly huffed when you saw Akaashi watching you, one smug eyebrow raised at you. You gave him a petulant frown before turning back to your drawers where you bundled up your stack of bras and underwear and lifted them out to toss them on the pile of clothes that you would soon be sorting through. 

Another pile of shirts was then stacked on top as Akaashi finished emptying out the closet and you took a moment to look at the mountain before you. You had barely even started cleaning out the dresser and already you were beginning to feel overwhelmed at the prospect of having to sort through so many things. As if he could read the worry on your face, Akaashi came up and gently cupped your face in his hands. 

“You spark immeasurable joy for me,” he told you simply with a soft smile, echoing your declaration from earlier, and it took everything in you not to immediately melt on the spot. But, as usual, he wasn’t about to let you procrastinate any longer you were inclined to do. “Now, remember to start with something that you want to keep and go from there. By starting with the things that spark joy—” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you cut him off with a dramatic sigh. “I watched the show too. Decide what’s being kept. Say thank you to the things I’m getting rid of. Fold things in the drawers so they’re standing up, not lying flat. Hang things from shortest to longest. Then we move onto books and then its papers and then komono and finally, we’ll finish with sentimental things.”

Akaashi’s amusement was written clearly across his face, something so rare that it had you growing wary. 

“What?” you asked, unable to keep the suspicion from your tone and he gave a soft laugh as he shook his head.

“Nothing. I’m just surprised that you were able to remember the steps,” he smiled and it was your turn to give him a blank stare.

“There’s only five of them.” 

He chuckled again at your answer and gave you a sweet kiss before you could argue with him any further.

“I’ll make you a deal. At the end of all of this, when we get to step five, I’ll read each and every letter aloud to you,” he offered and excitement lit up your features. That was something he had never done before. 

“Deal,” you agreed eagerly before your expression softened slightly and you looked up at him lovingly. “I know I’ve complained a lot about this, but I’m excited to start the next chapter with you, too. There’s no one else I’d want to do it with.”

According to the KonMari Method, one’s sense of what sparked joy needed to be properly honed before turning to sentimental items. But as you saw the way that Akaashi was looking at you and when you felt him press a kiss to your forehead, you decided that you had a pretty good benchmark already.

**Author's Note:**

> Akaashi is a romantic at heart and no one can convince me otherwise. Want to talk more KonMari? Hit me up on [Tumblr](http://www.melremade.tumblr.com).


End file.
